


illusions of the sunlight

by vindicatedtruth (behindtintedglass)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindtintedglass/pseuds/vindicatedtruth
Summary: The shortest distance to home is around the universe.





	illusions of the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by and based directly on [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzS4OJP-YMk). I highly recommend reading along while listening to the music, as it makes the message of both the lyrics and the story all the more powerful.

 

 

**_Yesterday I died, tomorrow’s bleeding_ **

**_Fall into your sunlight_ **

 

It all starts, ironically, with a death. Beginning with an ending seems darkly poetic, but such is the destiny of one James Tiberius Kirk.

Commander George’s Kirk legacy had been about sacrifice, and little Jim grows up wanting desperately to prove him wrong: that no-win scenarios don’t exist, that nothing and no one has to be sacrificed.

He doesn’t understand sacrifice until he found something— _someone—_ worth dying for.

“Spock, we’re talking about your _life_!”

 

**_The future’s open wide, beyond believing_ **

**_To know why hope dies_ **

 

His birth had been historical—the first and only of its kind. It should have been a noteworthy cause for celebration.

Instead, S’chn T’gai Spock is looked upon as an abomination.

He will always be a child of two worlds, his father tells him, and he feels the heavy burden of failing to protect both.

“My mother was human, which makes Earth the only home I have left.”

 

**_Losing what was found, a world so hollow_ **

**_Suspended in a compromise_ **

 

There’s a moment, when he is suspended in the air right before he jumps out of the Corvette that crashes over the cliff, that he feels the most alive—powerful, like nothing and no one can ever touch him.

He wonders if this is why his father chose to die the way he did: maybe life has the most meaning at death’s door.

“I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die. Why I went back for you.”

 

**_The silence of this sound is soon to follow_ **

**_Somehow, sundown_ **

 

He gaze flickers up to the imposing stare of his father before he hurriedly averts his eyes; as he is still a child, he cannot yet completely govern his emotions: fear of his father’s wrath, anger on behalf of his mother, overwhelming shame and guilt and disappointment at himself.

Dried green blood cakes his lips and a green bruise tints his cheek; he clenches his fists and wonders if he will ever experience the human emotion his mother would fondly refer to as _joy._

“If I can be of assistance, I would be happy to accompany you on the away team.”

 

**_And finding answers_ **

**_Is forgetting all of the questions we called home_ **

**_Passing the graves of the unknown_ **

 

“Live long… and _prosper_ ,” he intones, deadly calm, as he walks away from the quietly outraged and prejudiced panel, finally realising that the philosophy of _Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations_ cannot be found on Vulcan.

“Four years?” he smirks at the Captain as he tosses away the keys to his motorcycle to the nearest shell-shocked stranger, _I dare you to do better_ ringing in his ears: “I’ll do it in _three_.”

 

**_As reason clouds my eyes, with splendour fading_ **

**_Illusions of the sunlight_ **

 

He lives his life competing with his father’s accomplishments in his mind, fuelled by both bitterness at living in his shadow, and a longing to make him proud. He saves millions more lives than his father ever did, rose to higher prominence than his father ever did… lives far longer than his father ever did.

He surpasses it all… and finds himself more lost than ever.

Face to face with a remnant of the wars fought for the peace he is born into, he finally understands the privilege borne from sacrifice.

“Better to die saving lives than to live with taking them. That’s what I was born into.”

 

**_And a reflection of a lie, will keep me waiting_ **

**_With love gone, for so long_ **

 

He is already mourning the life he could have had with her; now he is about to mourn the life he could have had with _him_.

Never has he found himself more torn between the call of duty and the longing of his heart. He has always looked upon the Ambassador as a guide to the path he must take, even though it feels like cheating; now that the Ambassador is gone, he is unmoored, lost without a lighthouse to his destiny.

He is still much too young to see himself die.

“I want to live as he did.”

 

**_And this day’s ending_ **

**_Is the proof of time killing all the faith I know_ **

**_Knowing that faith is all I hold_ **

 

He didn’t think it was possible to lose a father twice in one lifetime, _it’s gonna be okay, son,_ playing over and over in his mind as he clutches the Admiral’s grey uniform, ear pressed against a heart that has long stopped beating.

He presses his hand desperately against a glass door separating him from a radiation chamber, remembers reaching out to empty air as he gets beamed up without the person he wanted most to save, and fails— _again._

 

**_And I’ve lost who I am_ **

 

“I am now a member of an endangered species.”

 

**_And I can’t understand_ **

 

“When you have lived as many lives as he, fear of death is illogical.”

 

**_Why my heart is so broken_ **

 

 _“_ I feel anger for the one who took mother’s life. An anger I cannot control.”

 

**_Rejecting your love, without_ **

 

“Get him off this ship.”

 

**_Love gone wrong_ **

 

“I incorrectly assumed that you would be truthful in your Captain’s log.”

 

**_Lifeless words carry on_ **

 

“Because you are my friend.”

 

**_But I know, all I know, is that the end’s beginning_ **

 

 _“_ They are creating a black hole at the centre of Vulcan?”

 

**_Who I am from the start_ **

 

“I am as conflicted as I once was as a child.”

 

**_Take me home to my heart_ **

 

“As you have yet to select a First Officer, respectfully, I would like to submit my candidacy.”

 

**_Let me go, and I will run_ **

 

“As I am again your First Officer, it is now my duty to strongly object to our mission parameters.”

 

**_I will not be silenced_ **

 

“It is my function aboard this ship to advise you on making the wisest decisions possible, something I firmly believe you are incapable of doing in this moment!”

 

**_All this time spent in vain_ **

 

“I became concerned, in light of Vulcan’s demise, that I owed a debt of duty to my species.”

 

**_Wasted years, wasted gain_ **

 

“I could not find the time to tell him.”

 

**_All is lost, hope remains_ **

 

“The planet has only seconds left, we must evacuate! Mother, _now_!”

 

**_And this war’s not over_ **

 

“Jim, the statistical likelihood that our plan will succeed is less than four point three percent.”

 

**_There’s a light, there’s the sun_ **

 

“As a mission of this duration has never been attempted, I defer to your good judgement, Captain.”

 

**_Taking all the shattered ones_ **

 

 _“_ Anger. Confusion. Loneliness. Fear. I had experienced those feelings before, multiplied exponentially on the day my planet was destroyed. Such a feeling is something I choose never to experience again.”

 

**_To the place we belong_ **

 

“I do not know. Right now I am failing.”

 

**_And his love will conquer_ **

 

“Showing them compassion may be the only way to earn peace with Romulus. It’s logic, Spock. I thought you’d like that.”

 

**_And I’ve lost who I am_ **

 

“I’m one year older. A year older than he ever got to be.”

 

**_And I can’t understand_ **

 

“The test itself is a cheat, isn’t it? You programmed it to be unwinnable.”

 

**_Why my heart is so broken_ **

 

“Christopher Pike, former captain of this ship—and our friend—is dead.”

 

**_Rejecting your love, without_ **

 

“Never trust a Vulcan.”

 

**_Love gone wrong_ **

 

“Spock, nobody knows the rules more than you, but there has _got_ to be an exception!”

 

**_Lifeless words carry on_ **

 

“The truth is… I’m gonna miss you.”

 

**_But I know, all I know, is that the end’s beginning_ **

 

“All I ask is that you spare them. Please, Sir, I’ll do anything you want—just let them live.”

 

**_Who I am from the start_ **

 

“He joined Starfleet because he believed in it. I joined on a dare.”

 

**_Take me home to my heart_ **

 

“We make a good team, right?”

 

**_Let me go, and I will run_ **

 

“Try it! _This cadet_ is trying to save the bridge!”

 

**_I will not be silenced_ **

 

“What was I supposed to do—let Spock _die_?”

 

**_All this time spent in vain_ **

 

“If the universe is truly endless, then are we not striving for something forever out of reach?”

 

**_Wasted years, wasted gain_ **

 

“I saved your life, Spock; you wrote a report, I lost my ship.”

 

**_All is lost, hope remains_ **

 

“How are we gonna get out of this one, Spock? We got no ship, no crew, not the best odds.”

 

**_And this war’s not over_ **

 

 _“_ The Enterprise has something no other ship in the fleet has. You.”

 

**_There’s a light, there’s the sun_ **

 

 _“_ We come to understand that there is no such thing as the unknown—only the temporarily hidden.”

 

**_Taking all the shattered ones_ **

 

“I’m scared, Spock. Help me not be. How do you choose not to feel?”

 

**_To the place we belong_ **

 

“What am I gonna do without you, Spock?”

 

**_And his love will conquer all_ **

 

“We will do what we have always done, Jim—we will find hope in the impossible.”

 

**_Yesterday I died_ **

 

He feels him approaching slowly but purposefully, the celebrations fading into ambient noise as they stand apart from the crew.

“I heard about Ambassador Spock,” says his Captain gently.

He wants to smile—of course his Captain will not say something as illogical and inane as ‘ _I’m sorry’,_ no matter how well-meant. He appreciates the acknowledgement instead, everything in the Captain’s tone radiating understanding and support, his unwavering and yet not overbearing presence a soothing source of comfort and solidarity.

The reminder of his mortality is not as unsettling as it once was. His Captain standing hearty and hale beside him as they celebrate the date of his birth is a timely reminder that he still has a whole life ahead of him to live with the Enterprise crew—and her Captain.

Perhaps it is precisely the ephemerality of life that it makes all the more precious.

He senses his Captain hesitate, before asking, “Is that what you wanted to mention that time in the turbolift?”

 

**_Tomorrow’s bleeding_ **

 

“More or less,” his First Officer answers cryptically, and he drops his gaze, unwilling to push such a difficult subject. His First Officer seems to radiate a calm acceptance at the news of his _own_ death, and so he doesn’t have a right to be the one who feels off-kilter at the thought of a universe without Spock. That he might someday lose _him_ , too.

“I trust your meeting with Commodore Paris went well,” his First Officer goes on to say, expertly changing the subject while simultaneously voicing an unasked question, and this time he has to smile; of course his First Officer will respectfully refrain from asking for the reasons behind his now irrelevant decision, despite the fact that being the primary keeper of records, he must have seen his application before it was sent.

For so long, he has lived a life trying to be George Kirk’s son. He still doesn’t know what it means to simply be Jim.

"More or less," he replies enigmatically, teasingly.

Somehow, being his First Officer’s Captain—and friend—is an answer he intends to pursue.

“You really wanna head back out there, huh?” his best friend joins them, as well as the rest of the crew—their family—as they watch the only true home they have ever known being rebuilt before their eyes.

From his peripheral gaze, he sees his First Officer finally smile, and he feels his heart answer in kind.

The shortest distance to home is around the universe.

 

**_Fall into your sunlight_ **

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
